Anthony Perkins: Charming dark side

Anthony Perkins is a style icon, and marked a before and after in the world of cinema and fashion.

In the early 1950s, a new generation of actors burst onto the scene in Hollywood.. It had little or nothing to do with the male stars that until that moment triumphed and reigned in the cine. This new generation had its forerunner in Montgomery Clift , with him a new type of gallants made its way , tormented, rebels, insecure and physically fragile. Es decir, the antithesis of the male hero prototype up to that point like Burt Lancaster, Kirk Douglas, Rock Hudson or William Holden. Today we discover Anthony Perkins.

“Perhaps, after all, I don't mind being remembered for only one movie and one role. Maybe people will remember some of the rest of my work because of it.".

A new type of cinema was also beginning to be made., on the one hand more committed films (Elia Kazan, Martin Ritt, Sidney Lumet) and many others aimed at a young audience; in both cases this new type of hero fit these films. James Dean y Marlon Brando, could be the best known, but they were also Tab Hunter, Roddy Mac Dowall, Sal Mineo , John Kerr, Robert Wagner, entre otros.

An unexpected style icon

Agree with this new guy male, la moda in the fifties also evolved; and to a large extent the cinema had a lot to do with this change of look. The man began by freeing himself from the hat and little by little from the jacket suit. They are the years of triumph, undying to this day, del jeans and t-shirts (that until then had belonged to the underwear section and that Marlon Brando made fashionable), also from sweater combined with sport jackets, one of the looks that would most represent Anthony Perkins. De hecho, thanks to him now his name is perkins neck high neck mid rise. Asimismo, youth fashion triumphs in all areas and the college clothes and leather (through rock) imposed. As for essential footwear, moccasins and sneakers.

Thanks to its versatility, was able to play roles in very different film genres: western , drama, comedy , author cinema, terror, aventuras, Science fiction… Although the character that will be remembered for eternity is that of Norman Bates in Psycho, Alfred Hitchcock's masterpiece. Anthony Perkins was a great actor with a natural charm that pierced the screen thanks to one of the most charismatic smiles in cinema, with a presence capable of mixing shyness, the fragility, but also a dark side.

¿Who was Anthony Perkins? 

Bio: actor's son , from Broadway theater and television, many wanted to see in Anthony Perkins a continuation of the mythical Dean but he had his own personality. He worked with the most influential directors (Hitchcock, Orson Welles, John Ford, William Wyler , Anatole Litvak, George Cukor o René Clement) with the most legendary actresses (Here the list is very interesting: Ingrid Bergman , sophia loren , Brigitte Bardot, Jane Fonda, Audrey Hepburn, Romy Schneider, Shirley Maclaine, Jeanne Moreau, Ava Gardner, Geraldine Chaplin, Melina Mercouri, Jean Simmons……some fell exhausted at his feet); and with the best known and respected actors of the moment, as Gary Cooper, Henry Fonda, Gregory Peck , Fred Astaire, Karl Malden o Yves Montand.

As for the sentimental field, surprisingly he liked to say that he was homosexual until he was forty years old since he had romantic relationships with some men, but he would find stability and love with a woman, Berry Berenson (sister of model and actress Marisa Berenson)  with whom he had two children , Oz and Elvis. – curiosity:   His wife, Berry, He would die just on the eve of the ninth anniversary of Perkins's death in the attack on the Twin Towers in New York.).   Anthony Perkins died in 1992 at the age of sixty due to complications from the AIDS he suffered.